


Six Birthdays

by sister_coyote



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Character Study, Drabble Sequence, M/M, Mad Science, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-14
Updated: 2006-10-14
Packaged: 2017-10-03 06:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_coyote/pseuds/sister_coyote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six birthdays; six glimpses of Vincent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Birthdays

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the entire game. References to torture.

**Partner: Twenty**

Vincent's first mistake had been forgetting the important thing about Tala: she could be trusted implicitly and with his life during a mission, and not at all afterwards. He definitely shouldn't have let her pick the bar, or order the first round. Or the second, come to that.

"This is my birthday present to you," she said, planting another shot glass in front of him. Dark-amber liquid sloshed. He'd lost track of which number this was. "I'm gonna teach you to drink like a Turk. Bottoms up!"

Against his better judgement, he knocked the shot back. Malak and Jon whooped.

**Silence: Twenty-Five**

No one knew where Vincent was—security, of course—but Shin-Ra forwarded what mail he got. Several weeks' worth at a time arrived in thick manilla.

This time, in amongst the bills and ads were two personal notes. One, a card from his mother, in her shaky hand. One, a card from Tala and Malak and Jon: "Happy birthday. We miss your scrawny ass."

"Happy birthday," he repeated aloud: the only time he was likely to hear it today. He hadn't told Lucrecia about the date's significance. He didn't want to bother her; she had important things on her mind.

**Gift: Twenty-Six**

There wasn't much left in the world besides pain. From time to time, Hojo interrupted the constant and almost banal agony with inventive new torments: someplace else to slice, something else to implant or remove, something else to inject.

Vincent had no way to measure the passing of time, and couldn't say with any real confidence how long he'd been down in this basement, in this grey room. Until the day he heard Hojo tell his lab assistant, "Today's a special day for the specimen. I think we should give him a _gift_."

The syringe glittered in the fluorescent light.

**Journey: Twenty-Eight, or Fifty-Eight**

They walked, and fought monsters, and hunted or scavenged a meal, and set up camp; woke early the next day to begin it again. Vincent found it easy to sink into his own mind. Only Cid's swearing, or Yuffie's often inappropriate laughter, could shock him out of it, and even then not for long.

"It's my birthday in a week," Yuffie was saying. The fact that he gave no sign that he was listening didn't seem to deter her. "When's yours?"

" . . . I forgot it. It was last month," he said, and smiled at her shocked squeak of, 'you _forgot_ it?'

**Snow: Thirty, or Sixty**

This far north, the snows fell heavy even so early in the year. They blanketed the eaves and muffled the world. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but the quiet suited him, and he stared out over the moonlit drifts and let his mind run its familiar deep-worn track of memory and regret.

His new phone rang. He left it a long while before picking it up and flipping it open. "Reeve Tuesti" glowed back at him from the little screen. He blinked at it, and then—against the counsel of his fears—pressed _Talk_ and said, "Yes?"

**Firelight: Thirty-Two, or Sixty-Two**

He closed the door quietly and shed his cloak, dropping it over the back of a chair. When he saw the light at the crack of the bedroom door, a tension he wasn't aware of carrying unknotted itself in his chest.

Reeve sat with his back propped against the headboard of the bed, reading a book spread across his lap. His robe gaped open a little. Vincent took that in; took in, too, the bottle of wine on the bedside table, the two glasses, the fire laid in the hearth.

"Well," he said, low and amused: "happy birthday to _me_."

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [Livejournal](http://sister-coyote.livejournal.com/11482.html) and [Dreamwidth](http://sister-coyote.dreamwidth.org/74077.html).


End file.
